


The Taming of the Squirrels

by rhysiana



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Campus Squirrels are an Important College Phenomenon, M/M, Tango POV, background nurseydex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 14:59:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12961911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: Tango and Nursey make it their goal to touch a Samwell squirrel. The rest of the team supports them, some more exasperatedly than others.





	The Taming of the Squirrels

**Author's Note:**

> I reblogged [this post](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/167027658898) about the campus squirrels being different from regular squirrels and noted in my tags that the OMGCP fandom had been woefully neglecting key Samwell campus life content.

“Have you noticed the Samwell squirrels are different from, like, normal squirrels?” Tango asked over breakfast one morning.

Whiskey just nodded in confirmation next to him, not bothering with words when there was still food he could be eating.

“Oh, bro, those half-tame little fuckers are terrifying! Look like they’re about to mug you,” Ransom said from the other end of the table.

“Oooooh, the Samwell squirrels…” Holster looked almost gleeful, which was always kind of worrying. He sat up straighter and took on his storytelling pose. Ransom rolled his eyes. “Legend says there was once a student who dedicated himself to picking up one of these fabled creatures before he graduated. For four long years, he strove to tame the beasts. He offered them food. He sat still as stone under the trees by the Pond. He learned to speak their language. And finally, the day before graduation, it happened. A squirrel came to him and took the bread from his hand, and did allow him to lift it. Verily, they even say he was able to pet it for nearly five minutes. He refused to walk at graduation, saying his true college mission had been accomplished.”

Dex raised a skeptical brow, while Bitty looked vaguely disgusted. “Well, I certainly hope he washed his hands afterward. Tree rats.”

“You don’t think they’re cute?” Tango asked.

“I mean, I guess,” Bitty conceded, “but they’re _everywhere_ where I’m from. My mama uses a pellet gun to keep ’em off the birdfeeder. Why spend all your time trying to pick up a squirrel when you can pet Prof. Atley’s dog? Or the volleyball team’s cat? Respectable pets. _Clean_ pets.”

“Guinea pigs,” put in Chowder. “I think I know someone with a ferret.”

“Rats,” added Whiskey.

“ _No_ ,” said Bitty, “not rats. I said _respectable_ pets.”

“Rats are actually very clean,” said Dex mildly.

“Yeah, Bitty, don’t judge,” drawled Nursey, clearly just to be a shit.

Bitty narrowed his eyes at them. “I will deny pie to any person who dares bring a rodent into my Haus.”

“Nah, bro, chill!” Nursey threw up pleading hands. But then he turned to Tango. “I do kinda want to touch a Samwell squirrel now, though. You in?”

Tango’s face lit up and Nursey held up his hand for a high-five.

Dex buried his face in his hands.

Whiskey took the opportunity to casually steal his bacon.

***

They decided to set up their project in the front yard of the Haus. Nursey was already sitting under the tree with one of his notebooks when Tango showed up and upended his backpack at Nursey’s feet.

“What’s all this?”

“We have to figure out what their favorite kind of food is, right? I brought lots of things to test.”

Indeed he had. An apple, already in slices in a Tupperware container. Dinner rolls from the dining hall. Doritos (three flavors). Corn nuts, for some godawful reason. (“I figure something must like them.” “Fair enough.”) Birdseed.

Tango threw himself down on the ground next to Nursey and looked at him expectantly. “What should we try first?” He pulled a lab notebook and a pencil out of the backpack, and opened it eagerly to a fresh page.

***

They did not make a lot of progress that first day. They stayed out all afternoon and saw a number (“Seven. It was seven.”) of squirrels, but they showed relatively little interest in the food they’d set up in stations in a semi-circle in front of them.

“Maybe we were too close to the food,” Nursey mused.

Tango made a note of this hypothesis. “I think we need to stay out there with the food, though. So they can get used to us.”

“True, true.”

Dex paused on his way to the refrigerator to pluck a few leaves out of Nursey’s hair. “I swear you do this on purpose.”

Nursey leaned back precariously in his chair to give Dex an upside-down grin.

Tango ignored them, busy making a grid in his lab book. “Let’s make an observation schedule!”

***

**Day 3:** Squirrel took an apple chunk smeared in peanut butter.

***

**Day 5:** Bitty helped us make squirrel feeders out of pinecones, peanut butter, and birdseed! Hung them from the tree in the front yard.

***

**Day 8:** Nursey sat under the tree for two hours while I was in class and then I took over. N reported 3 squirrels in tree on his watch. I saw 4. Looked at me suspiciously.

***

**Day 13:** Squirrels have stopped reacting when we open the Haus door. Seem unconcerned when we come and go from the tree. (Dex has started collecting the leaves Nursey brings into the Haus.)

***

**Day 21:** Modified the feeders so we can unhook them from the tree when we’re there and move them incrementally closer to us. Distance: 4 ft.

***

**Day 34:** Put the feeder cone right in front of my lap! Distance: 2 inches.

***

**Day 55:** Got a squirrel to grab a bit of apple from our hands!

“Nursey. Do you seriously have an acorn on top of your head now?”

“Dexy, look! Oh, you scared it away. But it totally look the food right off my fingers!”

“Uh-huh. Let’s get you inside so you can finish that lit crit assignment.”

“Oh, shit. Later, Tango!”

“…eight, nine, ten… How can you possibly end up with this many leaves sticking to you? Are you rolling on the ground? Are you trying to disguise yourself so the squirrels will accept you?”

“Fuck off.”

“How soon do you think until they start banging?” Whiskey asked, having appeared out of nowhere to lean nonchalantly against the trunk of the tree.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

***

**==Haus GC==**

**Shitty:** PICS OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN

**Tango:** No, it did! I swear!

**Lardo:** Chill, bro, we got your back.

**Lardo:** Be nice to the tadpole, Shitty.

**Shitty:** sorry

**Nursey:** Scout’s honor, it happened.

**Dex:** Pls, you were never a Boy Scout.

**Ford:** I know a guy who knows a guy who can hook me up with a wildlife camera. I’m on it.

**Lardo:** That’s my little padawan.

**Holster:** FORD! FORD! FORD!

***

**Day 89:** [pasted in picture of Tango with a squirrel held gently against his chest, looking ecstatic; in the background, Nursey is kissing Dex (bright red, shocked) in celebration] 

**Author's Note:**

>  **Bonus squirrel fact:** The scientific name of the Eastern gray squirrel is Sciurus carolinensis. “The generic name, Sciurus, is derived from two Greek words, skia, meaning shadow, and oura, meaning tail. This name alludes to the squirrel sitting in the shadow of its tail. The specific epithet, carolinensis, refers to the Carolinas, where the species was first recorded and where the animal is still extremely common.” [*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_gray_squirrel) It is, in fact, the official state mammal of North Carolina.


End file.
